


Ashes and Wine

by Clarice Chiara Sorcha (claricechiarasorcha)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Entirely Self Indulgent On Part Of The Author, Even When They Plan Mass Murder, Hound!Ren, M/M, Soft Kylux, emperor!Hux, something like a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 13:00:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8286737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claricechiarasorcha/pseuds/Clarice%20Chiara%20Sorcha
Summary: The Emperor has a mission for his Hound.(And he has one to accept, in turn.)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Loobeeinthesky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loobeeinthesky/gifts).



> So, this fic is an entirely self-indulgent ramble, inspired months ago by [@littleststarfighter](http://littleststarfighter.tumblr.com)'s amazing piece of art [here](http://littleststarfighter.tumblr.com/post/142013690657/emperor-hux-passing-on-super-secret-mission-globes). It's honestly a piece that's haunted me for _months_ ; Word tells me I first started trying to write this four months ago, but the idea was there long before I began. Honestly, there's like at least a 100k fic in this, but I decided to just be overly poetic and let loose, because the frank detail and beauty of the art just brought out that side of me, ha ha. In all honesty, though, I have been inspired over and over again by the artists in this fandom, it's absolutely amazing. I can't write half as well as they draw, but...this is about as close to a happy ending as I'll ever for these two. So, I'll take it.
> 
> I was also listening to Lorde's lovely and morbid cover of [_Everybody Wants To Rule The World_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaVA6sgOpws) while writing this, and then of course Leonard Cohen and [First We Take Manhattan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTTC_fD598A) always puts me in the mood for some Emperor-Hound shenanigans. Sweet as. <3

He has ignored the rules. And Hux may not have the Force, but he has both sense and experience enough to know exactly what Kylo has done. The simple truth is this: Kylo has _not_ done what was asked of him. He had been told to come only after it was finished. Only after it was done.

No, Hux does not have the Force. But he can feel the _presence_ Kylo has within it: a pulsing current, alive in a way that is beyond logical limits – at least, logical limits as Hux’s education had taught them. The Force is real, an undeniable part of the universe. But it is also unquantifiable, and largely inaccessible but to those few chosen on the whims of something Hux supposes is named fate. For that, he had largely disregarded it as something beyond his control, and his interest.

But that was before. And this is now.

Hux had spoken to the gathered troops but moments ago. They had been arrayed in neat formation before the high dais, with TIE fighters in framing ceremonial arrangement, this casual display of brute force both flesh and mechanical. The officers stood straight-backed in full parade uniform, and between them had been the Stormtroopers, masked and indistinguishable in a sea of shining white. Indeed, the ranks of both should have been endless, nameless, faceless. But Hux had _felt_ him there: Kylo, a bright burning beacon amongst the smouldering embers of the fire Hux had built once to furious frenzy, and now stoked again to full flame with voice and fierce rhetoric alike.

Hux has no link to the Force save for Kylo himself. But given the deep wellspring of power that lurks and lives within Kylo, perhaps it is not so strange – that it should spill out of even that strange oversized body to fill the cracks and breaks within Hux, too. It makes something new of the men they both were, they men they are now becoming.

But even within those orderly lines and ranks, Kylo would not be recognised. He is beyond them all: the enlisted men, the warranted officers, the civilians of both this planet, and those of the system itself. They, too, had come to him here, circling in spiralling ragged edges – with faces upturned, eyes wide, minds open to the promises given by the man they had allowed to be crowned their emperor. Even now Kylo moves amongst them only as a shadow, a shade both knowing and unknown. The Knight Kylo Ren had always worn a mask. Now, Hux’s unnamed Hand wears only his once-hidden face. And he has no name. He has gone from Ben Solo to Kylo Ren to this nameless creature of Light and Dark.

_The Emperor’s hound, half-leashed and always ready for attack._

There are those who would recognise him. Hux has no doubt that those people have gathered intelligence enough to know it. Certainly, the Emperor’s Hand is a hushed tale, told as a myth but known to be true, for all that Hand is never seen at his Emperor’s side. But they speak of a man with a scar, dark hair, darker eyes. Tall and looming, and in his gloved hands: a sword made of brilliant blazing golden light. They whisper that perhaps _this_ had been what lay beneath Kylo Ren’s mask. But they do not _know_. And Kylo Ren had been Snoke’s creature, through and through.

This Kylo serves only his emperor.

But now the speech is done, and Hux has retreated to an odd little alcove behind the great stage. Amongst its hanging banners and fluttering standards he is all but invisible. His security detail assume it a foible, for it is well-known that their once-general still enjoys sneaking himself a cigarra or two, particularly after such gatherings of state and pomp. They’re content enough in their security to leave him such small vice in private. Yet the hand resting over his pocket does not place weight about the battered silver of a cigarra case. Something rounder, denser, lies within. And it will prove far more important, indeed.

And it is for the eyes of only two.

From here, behind and to the extreme right of the dais, Hux is still afforded a cut-off view of the parade grounds. They teem yet with their gathered peoples; they are rallied indeed, roused energy coming off them in sparks and flaring pride. They have adopted him as their champion, these disenfranchised peoples, forgotten as they have been by the New Republic. With few resources to mine and plunder, and fewer riches to pledge, they have long been left to their own miseries. And so they waited – a leader. For a _reason_.

During his speech, Hux had felt him in the crowd like a blade pressed to the quickening pulse of his own throat. He can almost taste his approach now, ion-rich, dancing electricity upon his curling tongue. If he swallowed, it would skip direct and through his heart, its beat turned to static silvered hum. As it is now, Hux’s yearning for his touch already has him leaning towards the other man as though magnetised.

But Hux holds his place: back to one of the pillars, eyes forward, gloved hand about the orb in its tailored pocket. He had been born a soldier, and had made himself a ruler regnant. Dressed in the militarised finery of one who knows what battles are yet to come, Hux looks over his people. His lowered voice may not carry to their ears now, but every word rings as true, clear command.

“I have a task for you.”

“Don’t you always?”

And how he wants to turn, to look upon his face. The desire shifts like fire along his skin, patterns of lightning-strike searing along the veins, etching in their wake the branching burnlines of desperate need. “It is important,” Hux says, and keeps his gaze locked upon the shifting sea of Stormtroopers. “A task only for you.”

“Aren’t they always?”

The low roll of his voice, brontide made of flesh and bone, shivers through him. There’s amusement beneath his words, too. It twitches upon Hux’s own lips, mirrored and yet masked – by temperament, by the design of his birth and upbringing. And then, by his current position. Perhaps more that, than anything else.

His hand moves down, cups about his gift: the warmth of it burns even through the leather. With it now held within the cradle of his fingers, eyes still turned to the middle distance, Hux allows his head to tilt in conspiratorial whisper. He feels rather than sees Kylo’s echo of the gesture. A flicker of tongue over dry lips brings the memory of familiar taste, of soft knowing flesh beneath his own.

“This is for you.”

A short breath taken, and Kylo shifts close enough that their shoulders draw dangerously close. “Oh?”

“Yes.”

And he leans closer still now, warm breath but a whisper’s distance between them. “And if I don’t take it?” His voice deepens, grows darker. “If I would rather stay here?” Another shift, and – now their shoulders do brush, a point of electric contact. And Kylo sighs, only half-satiated as he breathes, “What if I would rather stay by your side?”

The tightening in his throat is but smallest impediment to his own reply. “It is my command.”

And he snorts, fingers closing about the globe, brushing Hux’s own through the fine chamois of his gloves. “It is always your command.” And a sudden, quick breath almost has Hux rolling his eyes. He should have known better, for he knows without glancing over that Kylo has looked upon it – that Kylo has broken their agreement, yet again.

But he also know that Kylo’s fingers will be moving over the globe with slow grace, almost reverent in their passage. “What is it?” he whispers, and Hux turns his gaze to where his guard awaits, his shuttle no doubt already prepped for immediate dust-off.

“You’ll have to wait and see,” he replies, already withdrawing, leaving Kylo to the fine lines of fallen Starkiller and the secrets that lie within. But Kylo’s other hand closes tight about his wrist. Pulled to a halt, Hux’s spine grows stiff, and his eyes remain forward. He never looks back.

“Hux.”

He blinks, slow and careful. “Kylo.”

“Haven’t you missed me?”

His sigh ought to be exasperated, annoyed. The fact it sounds closer to post-coital betrays him as it always has. “Don’t be too much of a child now, Kylo.”

“ _Hux_.”

“We’ve had this conversation.”

But Kylo does not let go. It is not as if Hux had expected him to – and he cannot help but revel in the touch, broad fingertips light in their movement over his own slim wrist. But Kylo’s other hand will remain about the gift, and a twist of anticipation curls low in his abdomen, a predator stirring to the hunt, roused by the scent of fresh blood.

Hux has his foibles, and the mission globes are but one of them. He passes them to Kylo in moments such as these, and yet: this one is different. Only certain missions are granted the sarcophagus that is Starkiller. Only the chosen few will have her lethal beam turned upon them, one last time.

 _None shall live. All shall pay_. _For what they did to me – but more, for what they did not do for **you**_.

“Who is it?”

And he sighs, feeling Kylo’s warring disappointment-relief before he even speaks the truth aloud. “It’s not her.” And for all there is more than one woman they would both wish to see fallen, there is only one _Her_ in this. “But…it could lead to that end.” He’s leaning back, again; the soft deep darkness of Kylo’s hair ghosts along his jaw. And his hand tightens to a fist, voice hardening. “If you are to be successful, you cannot waste time.”

Kylo’s grip about his wrist remains just as tight, almost enough to bruise; it is a purple-black bracelet Hux will wear gladly, when he is gone. He will press his own fingers to the pulse-pain of them later, as he fists his cock, and he will remember too the hum of Kylo’s voice beneath his skin.

And for all his fought-for skills in shielding such matters from the likes of Kylo, he knows the man hears these thoughts, skittering and reckless as they are upon the surface of his mind. The weight of his eyes rests upon Hux with heavy desire, stripping away the heavy clothing with every hungry second. “Is that what you call it?” The murmur comes too close to the shell of his ear, his lips more movement than sound. “When I stay by your side?” Now, his nails dig deep. “A _waste_?”

“Kylo,” he warns, but it’s already too late. Kylo is pressed to his side, his great body the restrained vibration of a storm on the very verge of furious break.

“I know you’ve missed me. And my cock.” He’s smiling, too, the bastard. “Inside you.”

And even Hux, practised and poised though he had been before his peoples, cannot restrain the great shudder that moves through him now. “The information in that globe is time dependent,” he says instead, voice remarkably even. “He will not remain in that position long.”

“I will find him.” The fierce fury of the words, the assurance of their truth – Hux can feel their power coursing through his veins, curling into low tight heat in his groin. “But I already know where _you_ are,” Kylo whispers, every syllable pure sin. “And I know what _you_ want.”

“ _Kylo_.”

And he’s so close – too close. “Look at me,” he says, “please.”

It is no command, only a plea – and spoken now in a deep baritone that has ordered the death of so many, that has been so often the last sound heard by all traitors to the Order’s throne.

And the one who sits upon said throne cannot deny him. Hux turns, his hand rising, slipping to cup his jaw even as he holds his distance. For it has been too many a cycle since they have last met. And Kylo, now: there’s something longer, sleeker about him. He seems a predatory creature on the hunt in lean and hungry lands, sustaining himself on vengeance and vanity alike.

But there’s more colour to him, too; it leaves him vibrant and vital, as if he has gorged himself upon the raw power of his beloved Force. The scar that bisects his unusual features in two halves is still pinkened, rough against the pale skin of his long face; Hux traces it with his thumb, even as his gaze catches upon Kylo’s own.

Those dark dark eyes have long been his downfall, beneath hair that has lightened slightly; by the faint golden hue, Kylo has spent much of his recent days upon a desert world. His clothing, too, holds more colour, and far more style than the monastic robes he had worn as Snoke’s acolyte. Here he is the emperor’s man in his rich jewel-toned fabrics: and over it all, the silver flash of his armoured shoulders, this fierce creature of red and grey.

Kylo tilts his head, silent beneath this scrutiny. And Starkiller is cradled still in his grasp, so small in his too-large palm. His other hand remains as that welcome manacle about Hux’s wrist. The saber at his belt is quiescent, and Hux scarcely spares a glance before he meets his eyes again. Those damned dark eyes, swallowing the world whole. They always remind him that while Hux had built Starkiller to devour stars, somehow he’d forgotten that the black holes left in their wake could also undo reality entire.

“See,” and there is rich satisfaction in those words; the smugness almost suits him. “See, you _did_ miss me.”

Lying to a Force user is always almost impossible, for Hux he has remarkable shielding skill for a technical layman. But he also has his pride. “We all have needs, Kylo,” he says, almost too prim; Kylo’s face splits in lopsided grin, surging forward to press lips to his as he lets go his wrist.

“But you deny them more than most,” he whispers against Hux’s stern still mouth. He’s still grinning, the great fool. “So: let me. Let me do this for you now.”

This time he bites back the shiver; so many promises unspoken in so few words. “What satisfaction do you really believe we can have here?”

“Enough.” He crowds closer yet, though his eyes alone are enough to fill all the worlds that have so long separated them. “Let me in, Hux.”

His chin tilts upward. “Would I really make it so easy?”

But even his cool defiance only brings faint laughter, the freed hand ghosting over his temple. “Of course not.”

Kylo is a force not to be denied. They stand so close, now, though they no longer touch. And yet Hux can feel his hands upon him. Those searching eyes seek out his, over and over, and Hux must fight to speak around the breath caught high in his throat.

“We could be _seen_ , you idiot.”

Kylo only scoffs, one thigh insinuating between Hux’s own. “As if I would ever be seen. If I did not wish it.” And for all he should not allow it, Hux lets him in, even as Kylo sighs. “I barely exist, remember?”

He does not even remember removing his glove. And yet it is his bare hand that moves up now, fingertips in light dance over the scar. “I see you.”

Kylo blinks, only once. Somehow, in that – Hux bears sudden the memory of a mask, burned and broken. But above it: a dark bent head – _rising_. The pale cheeks had been damp with saltwater, but his eyes burned as molten black fire. And now that same man smiles, almost soft, always welcoming.

“But then,” Kylo whispers, “you’ve always seen me.”

Hux cannot resist. After a lifetime of rationed pleasures, and careful steps – it is almost too easy to cast it all aside in one moment of madness. It had started long ago, and is now repeated always. The taste of him is like ash upon his tongue, chased down by the sweet wine he drinks only rarely. But the nectar of it remains always, a ghost upon his lips. Now Hux hunts it with relentless glee, drinking it deep from the very source, the very fount.

It is Kylo who breaks the kiss first, drawing gently back. Those dark eyes, half-lidded, float above a wide mouth curling in lazy half-grin. “So – you don’t have the time for this, then?”

He purses his lips, haughty even as Kylo presses his thigh ever upward. “I am the _Emperor_ , Kylo.”

“Then you, of all people, can make all the time you want.”

Hux could give him answers; his sharp tongue has never been short a rejoinder, around this man. And yet, he only takes his bare hand, lays it open-palmed upon his chest. The hidden heartbeat beneath his fingertips quickens, just a step. And he smiles. It is _his_ , now. And he will never forget the requirements of such responsibility. Such _gift_.

“They believe I have stepped out for a cigarette,” he warns, the command half-clipped, not quite faltering, but hardly binding. “If I come back ravished—”

“You always did say I have no subtlety in me.” Looking up from beneath those long eyelashes, Kylo proves both coy and predatory alike. “But I can be taught.”

Even as he snorts Hux is unable to resist trailing fingertips along his jaw, tracing like a bladetip. “And who would you be learning such skills from, pray tell?”

The grin burns hot against his own skin. “Holocrons are filled with such _interesting_ uses of the Force.” And his tongue is damp, challenging where Kylo licks low over the quickening of his own throat’s pulse. “You really have no idea.”

And Hux raises his hand, catches Kylo about the jaw, throat pressed tight to the web between thumb and forefinger. “Well,” he says, tilting his gaze upward, “it is your area of speciality and not mine, yes?”

The angle is just slightly too acute. But the pain only curves Kylo’s grin sharper, eyes glinting with fresh challenge. “Shall I share something with you, then?” His tongue darts out, flicks light over his upper lip. “My _emperor_?”

He shivers to hear the insubordination; they haven’t the time for it now, but he will file it away for lessons to be taught later, again. “I still have gatherings to attend,” Hux says instead, even as he makes no move to leave. “My work is never done.”

“I’ll be careful with you.” The moment Hux’s hand drops he leans forward, again. Crowding Hux back against the pillar, the great body all but envelops him, his nose now pressed to where his lips had been but a moment ago. And Hux closes his eyes. Kylo is always so very warm; it sits so at odds with the memory of how cold he had been on Starkiller, in the snow, in the liminal space between life and death.

“Let me have you,” Kylo whispers, and Hux opens his eyes.

“I am nobody’s but my own.”

“But you don’t really believe that.” Kylo shifts, words spoken into his skin as if they might tattoo themselves there. And yet it’s soft, almost uncertain, when he asks, “…do you?”

“Careful, Kylo.”

And now he chuckles, a low and peculiar sound. “Why be careful,” he says, lips dragging upward, “when I can be _right_?”

The kiss should not take him by surprise – and yet somehow, it does. It is staggering, to Hux, that it can always feel as if it is the first time. Of course, it had been clumsy, then – desperate and sudden and uncertain. They both had lost everything, finding only one faint spark in the encroaching darkness. Snoke had been right, perhaps, to always play them against one another. The moment they came together, that first time, they had been set upon a path that would pull the old fool down from his throne, screaming and railing and cursing them both.

 _We were already cursed long before you, old man_. _If you had had but an **inkling** of the power in him – if **any** of you had **realised** —_

Both hands somewhere became ungloved, and the mission globe is nowhere in sight. Hux does not need to ask after its location. Within its sphere are the coordinates of one who will lead him towards the inevitable ending of everything. It will lead them both. Kylo would never let that go to waste.

But both his hands are on Hux alone, now. With foreheads pressed together, Hux catches only the faintest whisper of words; some old language, a tongue of magic and malice, something long-forgotten and cast aside. But Kylo had brought it back. He lays it now before him, the charge of the air around them terrifying in its exhilaration. A thousand fingers caress his skin even through the thick rich fabrics of an emperor’s new clothes, and Hux leans into it even as logic tells him to step back.

“Kylo—”

“Let me do this.” The strain of his voice is a lovely thing, bringing to mind the stretch and play of long muscles beneath the scars of his skin. “Just…let me _in_.”

It is hardly the first time Kylo has used the Force in such inappropriate manner. Hux allows it, gaze fixed upon him. Both Kylo’s eyes, and the man himself, have turned so very still. But everywhere, his touch lingers, tracing every inch of Hux’s own skin as if his very spirit envelops him. Hux should be uncomfortable. He should turn away. He is his own man: the son of a commandant, risen to emperor by his own hand. He has his ways and his means, and in truth he ought to need no other.

And yet he _wants_ this. Kylo wraps around him in a darkness both glittering and endless, his black eyes so very like the deep void seen from the bridge of the _Finalizer_. He’d had such odd dreams, in the days before Jakku and the scavenger and the loss of everything that came before – strange dreams where he had run riot with Starkiller, leaving swathes of empty space in his screaming wake: all the stars snuffed out in the name of purest order. He senses something of that in the darkness of Kylo’s eyes now. But there is no illusion of emptiness. Black is not the absence of colour. It is the result of everything, together.

But Hux has said that he will not be ravished, and he means it. No matter the oddities of their peculiar relationship, Hux is emperor, and he has his standards to maintain. Kylo does not appear to take this thought from his mind – indeed, he should not need to – but he still makes no motion towards his buttons, to the clasps of cloak and belt. Instead, he draws back, again; the smile upon his lips is pure mischief, so very at odds with the creature his life has made of him. Hux might have frowned, had his mouth not opened on a sudden gasp; blunt fingers brush against his buttocks, and then slide careful and between.

“ _Kylo_.”

He laughs, near soundless. Hux can still feel it rolling about the great cavern of his chest. “Trust me,” he whispers. “I think you’ll like this little trick, of mine.”

Drawing a shuddering breath only reminds him that Kylo’s hands are now upon his face, lips but a breath from his own. But still: fingertips drag low, easing him open, slipping inside. The motion is knowing, almost gentle – but they know their target. And they find it with unerring skill.

He stands before Kylo here, fully clothed – they are both fully clothed, and yet there are fingers in his ass and against his cock and Kylo’s hands are still upon his face, eyes dark and thoughtful, lips faintly pursed.

And he kisses him. In return Hux surges up as the fingers press deeper, push harder. And Kylo’s mind moves against his own, strange and sudden and fascinating. Hux had always enjoyed puzzles of all kinds as a child; he’d soon graduated to modelling, in both base material and through holos. Things had come together so easily beneath his fingers, at the command of his thoughts.

Kylo had himself been at first so inscrutable, so peculiar – and Hux had never considered how he might be solved, let alone the thought that he would even be inclined to try. But then he had realised. And then he had _known_. At first, it had been an academic exercise; implementing Kylo’s potential even while wondering at the foolishness of those who had come before. Of those who had had every opportunity to bend Kylo to their will, and yet had failed. Because it was _easy_. Kylo made it so very _easy_.

And by the time Hux realised his misjudgement, he had already made his deadliest miscalculation. It had been too late. Perhaps it always had been – for Kylo bent to his will even as Hux bent in turn to his desire. And in the end, he could not turn away. He could never return Kylo to those who had ruined him. They might have brought him to Hux’s door, but they would pay for every wrong done to him on his long fall down.

Kylo’s exhale ghosts against his cheek, warm, familiar; then, again, lips close over his. Hux’s own hands wind in the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling hard even as he presses forward, swallowing him whole. Contentment, anticipation, gladness: they all radiate from him, burning and brilliant, the same as his heart. _They will pay_ , he thinks, but Kylo is wrong in that. Kylo does it for his emperor, perhaps.

But Hux does it only for Kylo.

And oh, the things Kylo would do for him. It’s a complicated cacophony of thoughts, now: fucking, fighting, _flying_ – the two of them together, soaring over worlds brought under their command. And under that preternatural touch he comes hard, if only in his mind; Kylo had heeded his demand to that, at least. But Hux still feels the orgasm as strongly as he would have otherwise, his mind overtaken by a thousand images, all coming too fast to see. But he knows Kylo in all of them. Kissing, killing; his hound, his hand, his _heart_.

He comes back to himself with striking difficulty, finds himself slumped forward, hands fisted in his tunic, breathing hard, cheeks damp. And Kylo, sensing his return, is so careful in laying hands upon him, tilting his face upward, smile crooked, eyes concerned in a way that should be at odds with the visage of a killer. And yet: here he is no-one else but Kylo.

“I think it was too much,” he says, very slow, lower lip caught in his teeth. “I’m sorry.”

And Hux snorts, the sound dangerously liquid even through his irritation. “I’m not _weak_ , Kylo.”

“You are the strongest person I have ever known,” he murmurs, and the reverence of the words does now leave Hux’s knees liquid and strange. Kylo’s hands are still on him, his smile growing, his eyes so dark and so wide even as he holds him still. “But you don’t have to be, you know. Not always.”

Hux closes his eyes, and says nothing more. The sound of the outside world is returning; the movement of ships overhead, the shouts and steps of the emptying parade ground. Closer, there is a first quiet fumbling of fabric, the flick of flint, and sweet scent tickling at the edges of his awareness. A moment later a cigarra rests between his fingers, rising then to his lips. Hux opens his eyes with a deep breath, wreathing them both in blue smoke.

“They will be wondering where I am.”

Kylo turns, leaning back against the pillar at Hux’s side. “I’ve already…encouraged…them elsewhere.” His smug pride turns to faint irritation, a moment later. “But they’ll be back, soon.”

Hux only hmms in return, cigarra again between his lips, the warmth deep in his lungs. In the silence Kylo has produced the globe again, held in the almost worshipful cradle of both hands. Without true thought, Hux reaches across the distance between them, fingertips tracing the etched opening of the weapon’s barrel. The memory of crimson death is a potent one – how well he remembers that day. Standing. Watching. Knowing that he is perfect order enacting perfect chaos.

And now, at his side, stands another weapon, one of far greater potential and scale – and for now, still and thoughtful beneath his hands.

_And he will be turned against those who deserved his wrath most._

“You should go,” he says, and it is bitterness for all the sweetness of the smoke. Hux still doesn’t expect the reply it earns.

“You should come.”

All instinct tells him to say no. “You know,” Hux says, almost conversational, almost casual as he raises the cigarra to his lips once more, “I’ve never actually seen you pilot. Not really.”

“Would you like to?”

His heart beats too fast. All his reports, through schooling and training and eventual lengthy deployment, had said Armitage Hux was sensible, smart, level-headed. They’d never known his reckless heart.

_They never deserved to._

“I haven’t the time,” he says, and Kylo scoffs, the globe moving from hand to hand as if he is a god about the act of purest creation.

“You could make time,” he suggests, and leans close. Another lungful of smoke, and Hux turns his gaze, to the shuttle that still awaits his arrival.

“I have work to do.”

The ungloved hand comes sudden and strong about his wrist, burning against the naked skin hidden beneath the embroidered cuff of silvered rank. “Or I could just take you with me.”

“ _Kylo_.”

Fingers move over his face, as if he has a mind to carve himself a memory in marble. “I could make you do anything I wanted,” he whispers, and when Hux raises the cigarra to his lips once more, they both pretend not to see the way it trembles.

“But you won’t.”

“No.” And he lets go, though his eyes never do. “And that’s why you would let me.”

His cigarra burns down in the silence between them. Hux watches the embers to the last moment, crushes it to ash within the case before it burns out. The mission is important, but not inherently difficult. Kylo can do it alone. For all he so often yokes himself to a master, Kylo does not need one. He only desires one. He could do this alone. All of it.

_He doesn’t have to._

And even as Hux leans still against the pillar, mounted monument to his growing power, Kylo straightens, the globe disappearing as if by magic. “You want to be emperor over all,” he says, and it’s so careless, so _carefree_ , that Hux aches. “So come,” he says, and he might be laughing somewhere. “Come on and _take_ it.”

“With you?”

“With your own hands,” he corrects, and those hands are in his, raised to his lips as if he is the penitent seeking a saint’s blessed sacrament. “But then, who else could ever hope to give _you_ all that you ever wanted?”

And in turn, Hux pulls back, presses his own lips to their entwined fingers. “Good luck,” he murmurs, and imagines the salt-sweet taste of blood and belated retribution. “With your mission.”

There are meetings, of course – they provide him with distractions aplenty before he returns to his quarters, back aboard the _Finalizer_. It is early in the morning cycle before he does so, sleep a luxury not even his station could hope to offer.

This quarters are empty, of course. When Kylo had left planetside, he had gone alone; he had never docked with the star destroyer in lazy orbit above. And yet, when Hux stands before the ordered expanse of his lonely bed: the globe lies there, silent upon his pillow.

Hux turns it over in his hands, and for all he makes no motion towards the activation key, a click and a whir announce a pending projection. But when the holo snaps into sharp relief against the starfield at its back, it is not the mission he had personally programmed for his Hand. Instead, it is Kylo himself: dark hair, and eyes fit to swallow his heart whole and bleeding.

“You want the galaxy? Then I’ll take it, for you.” And he leans forward, too close, pale face all but filling the limits of the view. “But I’m sure you want to help,” he says, and then he leans back, lips curled to fierce smile. “You know where I am.”

 _I always know where you are_.

In the silence, in the dark, Hux strips away the clothes of an emperor. And then he pads naked across the room to where the stars lie quiescent, arrayed before him in their most ancient configurations. Kylo is out there amongst them. Watching. Waiting.

And Hux he wouldn’t have his empire at all, if Kylo had not been here first.

_I wouldn’t **want** it. If Kylo were not here._

Hux closes his eyes, and the smile comes so very easy, now. His closet opens beneath a steady hand, finery pushed aside as he reaches for clothes he has not yet discarded. He does remember how to dress as a soldier, after all. And he’d burn down worlds with fire started by his own hand – for it is that hand alone that has let loose the dogs of war.

 _But it is our hands, together, that will rip open the throats of those who tried to collar the best of them all_.

And Hux smiles wider, reaching once more for the general’s gun.


End file.
